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A18 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
GIFT:
continued from Page A1
tell you how helpful it’s
been,” he said.
The Christmas Express
distributes food, toys and
other items to needy fami-
lies during the holiday sea-
son. Engle said she started
making quilts for the pro-
gram about 12 years ago,
and eventually got a hand-
ful of fellow residents at
Desert Sage Manor to help
tie the ones she made, and
in some cases make their
SOCCER:
continued from Page A1
org it jumped to 34 percent
for 2014-15.
De La Cruz knew that
BMCC’s Latino student
population was at just 21
percent in the fall of 2014,
according to the National
Center for Education Sta-
tistics, and a self-reported
23.3 percent according to
BMCC’s internal 2f¿ce of
Institutional Research. He
also knew that Latino ath-
letes who want to continue
in sports can’t attend local
colleges because they can’t
play their desired sport, of-
ten soccer. De La Cruz’s
¿ancpe has a son, )abian
Cortez, who graduated from
Hermiston High last spring
and enrolled at Treasure
Valley Community College
in Ontario, partially because
TVCC has a successful pro-
gram, but also because that
was as close as he could go
and also play soccer.
De La Cruz sought to
change that. He wanted
BMCC to open its arms to
the Latino community.
What he didn’t know,
though, was that Preus and
BMCC were already “inves-
tigating the possibility” of
bringing a soccer program
to BMCC. So when De La
Cruz came with the idea, it
was all but settled then.
“We were like, ‘Right on,
man. Let’s do this,’” Preus
said. “So his support really
helped spur us to move a
little faster than we might
have (otherwise).”
“To me, that means a lot
because we all have a right
to get a good education, and
BMCC is being very open
to ideas,” De La Cruz add-
ed. “The Latino community
is very excited.”
De La Cruz, Preus and
BMCC are using soccer as a
mechanism to help the Lati-
no community. De La Cruz
said that many are simply
ignorant of the resources
offered to help offset tuition
costs. The story is the same
every time, he said. A child
comes home with interest in
or an offer to or information
about playing soccer colle-
giately, and the parents see
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2015
own. Together they do-
nate between 100 and 120
handmade quilts each year.
Community members
often donate fabric for the
quilts, but the women gen-
erally pay for batting and
other supplies out of their
own pockets.
Engle said she started
making quilts after she re-
tired “just for something
to do,” but now she loves
being able to help out a
worthy cause.
This year she said she
made most of the fronts
and then set them up
on frames in the com-
mon area so other people
could sit and help tie to-
gether the front and the
back. )ellow Desert Sage
Manor resident Geri Nun-
nenkamp said having the
quilts to work on during
the year had been helpful
in keeping her mind off of
her health issues.
“It’s fun,” she said.
“When you’re in pain and
you can’t sleep, you can
sit and think of something
else.”
In addition to the quilts,
the residents also help the
Christmas Express pro-
gram by collecting dona-
tions, crocheting items
and buying toys and books
to donate.
Darlene Nelson, prop-
erty manager for Desert
Sage Manor, pointed out
that the apartments —
which are available to
women age 62 and older
— are subsidized by the
housing authority. She
said many of the women
there feel drawn toward
doing something in recog-
nition of the rent help they
receive.
Bonnie Engle stands with some of the quilts that she and
other Desert Sage Manor residents have prepared to donate
to the Christmas Express.
the ¿ve- sometimes six-digit
cost and tell their child they
can’t afford it. They don’t
know how to have tuition
funds supplemented by the
state or federal government,
or even that schools will of-
fer to pay for a portion of the
costs with scholarships.
In this way, De La Cruz
hopes to use soccer — and
athletics as a whole — to
motivate young people to
¿nd something constructive
to do, build a moral sys-
tem, get an education, and
eventually give back to the
community. And BMCC’s
move to include soccer in
a county with the demo-
graphics as they are was an
acknowledgment to De La
Cruz and others that BMCC
saw the same thing and act-
ed accordingly.
“That’s the starting point
right there,” he said. “You
do this recommendation,
you’ll see the end result.
And then, the other recom-
mendations will come later.
Later, I’ll recommend we
need more Latino instruc-
tors.
“Soccer is the ¿rst one
that they can see (if) it
works. It will work.”
But in addition to pro-
viding the Latino commu-
nity with resources they de-
serve yet know not about,
De La Cruz has a larger,
more general mission.
He sees a community in
Hermiston that is divided,
in a sense. And these two
groups’ choice of sport is as
telling evidence as there is.
He wants to use soccer
as a uni¿er, to bring peo-
ple together. We’re all from
Hermiston, he says, and we
should be united in that fact.
Soccer can be that tool.
“Our goal as HAC chair-
man and HAC committees,
we’re the bridge to both
communities to unite them
together,” he said, add-
ing that his son married a
white woman, so his fami-
ly is Àuent in trans-culture
dealings. He also pointed
out that though most of the
high school soccer teams
are either predominately or
heavily Latino, white play-
ers do appear on the rosters.
To him, that’s an indication
of the growth of soccer and
its potential as a communi-
ty uni¿er.
“What it looks like is pret-
ty soon this sport is going
to be accepted, as any other
sport,” he said. That’s how it’s
going. It’s growing so fast.”
Hermiston’s city adult
soccer league, played in
springtime, which once
welcomed as many teams
as possible, has had to start
cutting off entrants be-
cause of how the league has
grown. De La Cruz, though,
wants to keep people, and
kids especially, playing all
year long. So he’s working
with Hermiston School Dis-
trict Director of Operations
Mike Kay to open up Sand-
stone Middle School for fall
indoor soccer. They can play
two games at once there,
where their previous site,
Rocky Heights Elementa-
ry, could accommodate just
one.
This leads right back into
De La Cruz’s mission to get
Latino athletes — and stu-
dents, for that matter — in-
terested in and accessing the
necessary resources to go
to college. If they’re play-
ing sports, they’re going to
STAFF PHOTO BY JADE MCDOWELL
school and out of trouble. If
they’re going to school and
out of trouble, they’ll be bet-
ter people and the commu-
nity will be better because
of it.
“My point of view is:
Let’s get educated,” he
said. “Let’s educate our
community. And we’ll all
have a better life and great
success.”
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